> 20%/y

is that interest?!

One thing that always struck me about some countries that seem to have a really low housing (rent) costs: the home prices seem to be equal that in the US!

It doesn't make any sense. I'll see homes for 100K USD, but rent only $200-300/mo? How does that work?

I live in such a country. My parents have a $250k home, that would cost only $500-$600 to rent.

But here is the catch, they only pay $200-$300 in municipal taxes. I guess in the U.S it'll be a few thousands dollars. This cost will eventually drill down to the person renting the property.

Also that's the price tax-free because nobody is paying taxes on rental (which is 30%).

So if you add these two up, you get your price!

The general property tax rate in my area of the US is about 1.25-1.5% the value of the home. My home is ~$500k and my property tax is about $7250 a year. Previous home was ~$300k and my property tax was about $4200 a year.

Schools are funded primarily through this mechanism.

Property taxes are a lot in many places in the US. Not all states are bad. Some states you only have a few hundred dollars a year. In NJ (my home state), especially near NY, it is normal to pay ~2-3% of the home's value a year in taxes.

Yep, that's interest rate - I checked with several bank sites before posting. This is due to volatile economy (war, corruption, all that) and higher risks for banks. You end up paying several times the price of the property. Like I said, almost everyone I know just puts aside 30-50% of their salary instead and buys at once when they save enough. 50% of 4k - and you effectively have only $2k to spend each month. Doesn't look that rosy compared to France, does it?

Rent is cheap - I pay about $500/mo for a 1 bedroom apt in the city center. 10 minutes of walk to the office. The price of that place? - about $200k. That's one of the reasons we don't have a proper rental business: it just doesn't make sense.

That's because the Hryvnia, Ukraine's currency, is a volatile currency which is hardly worth the paper it's printed on. It has declined about 20% YTD against the Euro, and about 45% YTD against the dollar. Inflation is also extremely high.

> It doesn't make any sense. I'll see homes for 100K USD, but rent only $200-300/mo? How does that work?

It's +- how it works in Poland in dozen or so biggest cities. There's no ad valorem tax on buildings, just a very small muncipial tax basing on land area and some multipliers depending on category. Also there's still shortage of buildings in these cities.

50m^2 flat in Lublin is worth around $80 000, I could rent it at $250/month maybe. The price of renting is on the high side for the city size, it helps that that particular city has 5 universities and 100 000 students with 350 000 regular population.

Interest rates are at around 2-5% mostly.

It is very common in India. Rent costs are typically half or less compare to US properties. Most people who buy are using black money or hoping for high appreciation in price of property. With rental income no one can service mortgage.

Thanks for the details.

Not long ago I read that since the war, the Ukrainian average pension was about 70$ a month (this is why I was surprised by the 4k salary).

Devs must be kings there.

Yes, devs have very high wages compared to other professions here.

Point in case: I make 2.5x my parents' wages (combined) as a student working part time.

Pretty cool you can earn significant amounts with low cost of living. They must be proud of their son. :)

The rule of thumb is it costs around 3x the salary of a FTE (full time employee)